Like it's London cousin this tower also have a signature ring that goes every hour with the extended version at noon - that for long was played live on the radio before the noon news ( these days it's taped )

The City Hall Square is one of the central points of the city - and usually used for public gatherings, be that New Years eve, or parades for winning sports team or whatever - in the winter it's even home to a small ski jump hill for a short time

I will revisit more of the square soon, so let's leave it at that for now..

About the tower I can say it's like the Parliament building's tower is 106m tall and unlike the Parliament have a nice viewing platform open to the public each day at noon with a great view of the city..

The golden plate above the main entrence is a statue of Bishop Absalon the man who founded Copenhagen in 1167 ( prior to that it was just a small fishing village )

I've mentioned our founder Bishop Absalon a few times - I might as well tell a little bit more about him and how Copenhagen came to be..

Copenhagen was populated prior to Absolon, but was at the time just a small fishing village.. archaeological finds indicates it was Viking port back in the day and it may even predate the Danes arrival to Zealand.
Back then it vent under the name "Havn" simply meaning habour or port and that's also where it got it's latin name "Hafnia" from..

Anyway Absolon was a childhood friend of Prince Valdemar who would later become King of Denmark and Absolon - his dear friend - elected as Bishop and made chief counsellor of the King.

Back then ( in the 1100's ) not all of Europe was calm and under control and especially the Baltic Sea was chaotic and the people living along it's shores was plagued by the Wends who basicly were nothing more than pirates and slavetraders ( kidnapping people from the Danish isles and looting villages along the shores )
This was ofcause totally unacceptable so King Valdemar gave the task to Absalon to remove the threath from the Wends and secure the eastern parts of Zealand

He did this by creating a safe habour and build a castle in the old village of Havn hence founding the city "Købman's Havn" ( Merchants Port ) that ended up as "København" in modern Danish ( he started improving the city in 1160 but the official founding date is set to 1167 where the castle was completed )

He also gathered an army and started launching offensive experditions against the Wends who lived in Pomerania in parts that are now part of the Baltics - these proved very successful and in 1168 he launched a final assault against the Wendish forces succesfully defeating them on their own soil by capturing their capital

Absalon himself was a man of action and in the assault on Charenza he managed to break the Wendish lines ( reported to be 6000 man strong ) and storm their castle succesfully - with only 12 men left and his brother Sweyn who was also a bishop

After that succes Denmark became a major power in the region and he went on to wage war against all pirates in the area allowing for open and safe trade routes - making Copenhagen's position perfect for trading and port of the eastern fleet

He died in 1201 as an archbishop after a long and eventful life - respected by all from Royalty to farmers..

To pay respect the two newest ( and largest ) battleships in the Danish Navy have been named after him and his brother

^That's a little early for tourism imo - I will strongly recommend late april to late september..

In March it does at times reach 15C+ and the sun do shine from time to time ( last year march was really sunny ) but chances are most days will be fairly cloudy with 10-12C and cold nights.. ( technically it's "winter" ) on the positive side it's a time of year with little rain - compared to many other months of the year..

Few trees will have leafs at that time, but if you come late in the month ( as I will strongly recommend if you do come at that time ) most of the spring flowers will be blossoming

Cold air and the risk of boring weather does ofcause not mean you can't have fun, but it's imo not the best time for a first time visit - and certainly not for a guy coming from Texas - unless you are ofcause trying to awoid getting sunburned

All that said if you do come promise to take a lot of pics - and just in case bring some sunglasses, I might just turn just as great as last march was - but with the changing weather and global warming there's no guarentees

BTW Job related or vacation? - if I remember right your HQ is in London right?

^That's a little early for tourism imo - I will strongly recommend late april to late september..

In March it does at times reach 15C+ and the sun do shine from time to time ( last year march was really sunny ) but chances are most days will be fairly cloudy with 10-12C and cold nights.. ( technically it's "winter" ) on the positive side it's a time of year with little rain - compared to many other months of the year..

Few trees will have leafs at that time, but if you come late in the month ( as I will strongly recommend if you do come at that time ) most of the spring flowers will be blossoming

Cold air and the risk of boring weather does ofcause not mean you can't have fun, but it's imo not the best time for a first time visit - and certainly not for a guy coming from Texas - unless you are ofcause trying to awoid getting sunburned

All that said if you do come promise to take a lot of pics - and just in case bring some sunglasses, I might just turn just as great as last march was - but with the changing weather and global warming there's no guarentees

BTW Job related or vacation? - if I remember right your HQ is in London right?

yeah work is in london and will be there for a couple of weeks and was going to squeeze in a side trip. the cold weather is no biggie...i grew up in new york.

Getting down on the ground again I'll show you our Imax dome cinema - recently equiped with a brand new digital projector making it the largest 3D Imax cinema in the world - or so they say anyway.. It's the circular thing in the center..

Behind it you cen see a couple hotels and infront one of Søerne ( the lakes ) part of an old defensive system that runs trough the city seperating the inner city from the residential districts..

The lakes combined are 3km long with 4 bridges crossing, the picture is taken in the southern end.
The hole lake comples was started after the unsuccesful siege on Copenhagen in 1523 to create an aditional layer of defense - and back then this was the city limits. As the city grew a new defensive water line was created 8km further out

I't a very nice place to walk - or run if your one of those people.. but I will not recommend swimming as the water is from inland lakes..

By request we'll take a look at The Little Mermaid today.. an iconic statue located on the Langeline waterfront close to the star shaped Kastellet fortification

The Little Mermaid is based on a fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen the most succesful and probable most known Danish storywriter
( Among his work you'll find classics such as: The Emperor's New Clothes, The Princess and the Pea, The Snow Queen, The Ugly Duckling, Thumbelina and many many others. )

And to honor him and his works Carl Jacobsen gave the statue as a gift to the city.. it was made by Edvard Eriksen and the human part modelled after his wife and was unveiled in 1913

Let me just put some facts on the table here - this is NOT the statue of Liberty or anything else impressive - it's a little statue of a "Little" Mermaid - keyword Little!
Many tourist comes and gets disapointed daily - now why they find a small statue exciting in the first place is beyond me ( how the heck do people even know of it? ) sp if you come here please do not expect anything special - it's small and honest to Odin NOTHING special! There are tons of greater ( and larger ) statues around the city!

What Danes likes about it is the history of both the Mermaid herself and the link to Hans Christian Andersen - it's a national icon for us - for tourists there are tons of other statues I'll recomend before seeing this one..

Now that we got that out of the way let's see the lady shall we:

Yeah that's it... not bad but nothing special either - but if you like the ocean I will strongly recommend going for a walk on Langelinie waterfront where she is located anyway - it's a nice waterfront/marina with plenty to do on a sunny day - it's also where the cruise ships are in the spring and summer( Copenhagen is the largest cruise ship port in Northern Europe ) and you can find anything from old forts, nice nature, outlet stores, iceream shops, marinas and so on..
So it's deffinetly a place worth a visit just don't have any expextation about the statue.. thanks!

Since I showed you the Old Town's skyline yesterday I might as well show downtown's today..

Not much of a cluster - and with the ration of NIMBY's here that isn not likely to change anytime soon

On the postive thing we do have stuff going up elsewhere in the city ( that I will get back to ) but nothing major sadly..

I guess this is the skyline of the future as well.
I feel sorry for you guys(not that Oslo is any better novadays...)
It's a beutiful city, and a "La Defence" in the background would "complete" the city, I think.

^We are getting a tiny "La Defence" called "Ørestaden" that could be captured in the background ( from another angle ) but with the height restriction thanks to the airport it won't exactly be especially empressive..

I had something else planned for today's pic - but I think Ørestaden will fit well - be right back..

Okay today we'll take a brief look at Ørestaden an upcomming buisness district on the island of Amager

Upon completion it will be home to 20.000+ people and more than 60.000 jobs - and amazingly enough for the NIMBY ruled Copenhagen even have a few commercial highrises and "tall" hotels

So far most is still under construction or on the drawing board - so not that much to show.. it's home to one of Northern Europe's largest Malls - Fields - a station linking regional and metro together "Ørestaden Station" and one of the nicest highrises in the city - The Ferring Building - other than that there's not much to come after currently - but the future will certainly change that

Anyway here's the Ferring Building towering a massive 80m and the driverless Metro

I'll get back to the place later with a few of the other buildings..

It's not a place I will really recommend just yet as the mall pretty much is the only atraction so far - but if architecture interests you the short Metro ride from downtown might be worth it - if nothing else it's pretty fun to sit in front of the Metro as you get a big panorama view forward since it's driverless

The Ferring building is sweet.
the NIMBY's can actully suprise you sometimes,
they approved the 50m glassy "Skattehuset" in Bergen,
which is now almost finished.
(but they managed to reduce it's height to 50...)

Today we'll take a look at something imposible to miss in Copenhagen - the omnipresent Yellow Buses

You want to go somewhere these will take you - we even have habour buses here - buses are everywhere and taking a picture without a bus on it can be challanging at times..

The hole public bus service is run by the company Movia and the system have a total of 590 lines

In the metro city they are devided into 4 types:
The "red" ones are A buses that goes along the central routes with a frequency of 3 to 7min epending on the time of day
Then there's the normal yellow buses covering all the less frequented places going every 7 to 20 min depending on the time
Then there's the "blue" ones that are express buses running trough the city with very few stop making it almost as fast as driving yourself
And finally the "grey" ones that are night buses and usually goes every hour in the wee hours of the night
All the buses are ´primarity yellow with some parts in the colour mentione ( as you can see on the single deck bus on the pic - that is an A bus )

A nice feature for the A buses are the GPS based countdown system giving you a minut count until the next bus